Bargain bane

When is a $1,045 Valentino dress marked down to $200 at Filene’s Basement not a deal?

When is a gorgeous, red Valentino dress that’s been marked down from $1,045 to $200 not an amazing bargain? Sadly, I know the answer.

Scouting for both a newspaper story and a deal, I stopped into Filene’s Basement in its death throes. Everything was for sale. The clothing, of course, but also the racks, and toys the liquidator had brought in, and black-and-white photographs showing the Basement in its glory days, when it was an actual basement, not part of a chain you reached by taking an escalator up from Newbury Street, or driving to the suburbs.